Eldaire

IF ANYONE THAT KNOWS ME STUMBLES ACROSS THIS POST, PLEASE RESPECT MY PRIVACY AND DON'T READ IT!!! CLICK THE BACK BUTTON NOW!!! (EXCEPT BEN, I GUESS I'LL ALLOW YOU TO READ IT.)

*ahem*

Sorry about that guys, but I wanna go into detail about my life and see if anyone has any good tilted advice. (Heh. Tilted advice. I deserve money for this type of advertising.) For the past four years I attended Blair Academy in New Jersey. Blair is a good private school that's fairly hard to get into. It's also the top wrestling school in the country. I learned to wrestle very well there. For a while I was ranked 30th in the nation for my weight. My grades, however, fell dramatically since I started there. They are on a 6.0 scale. I started at like a 4.8 and my junior year I was a 3.5. The end of my senior year I was back up to a 4.0. Mind you, this is very general. The whole time it was like a roller coaster. Really high one term and really low the next. This is more or less the trend on a very large scale though. While at Blair I met a very nice girl named Rebecca who I was then and I think still am very much in love with. While there, I became addicted to sniffing glue my sophomore year, and heavily addicted my junior year. By my senior year I was cold turkey again and still am. I cheated on her a little when we started going out, but as I fell in love with her I stopped. I got accepted into Davidson College in North Carolina which was rated the seventh hardest school to get into. I have a 1400 SAT score and my school's teachers aren't allowed to write reccomendations if they aren't gonna write good ones, so my slacking (which I did a lot of) didn't get through to the college. All in all I look really good on paper. Because of that, I got a scholarship for $15,000 dollars that requires I wrestle and maintain a 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale). I didn't really want to wrestle, but for that much money I thought I could manage. Over the summer my Mom convinced me that becoming a genetic research scientist was an ideal career choice. It sounded good. I like science, and I love lab time. Davidson has an excellent Biology program and one of the top research scientists in Genomics is my Biology teacher. In spite of these awesome opportunities though, since I came here I've been slipping off the productive track more and more. When I first arrived, I was exposed to drinking for the second time ever. I am in a substance free dorm which requires I don't drink in the dorm and don't come back drunk. I've come back really drunk twice. After the second time, I gave up alcohol. My wrestling is good, I'm the best on the team. However, it is a lot of hard work and I really don't want to do it. Same with school really. My work was going okay in the beginning, but has been slowly slipping off since I came here. Lately, I've taken up smoking. I haven't been to any classes but Biology in two weeks, and I haven't been paying attention or doing homework for that one. I've cheated on Becca a few times in the beginning, but I've put a stop to that. I think these self-destructive habits are a subconsious passive-aggressive way to return home, get a job, and go to state college and become a teacher. (Home is Birmingham Alabama by the way.) That's what I really want to do, but I have a few things that conflict with these emotions though. For one, I don't think Becca (who I'm still with) would be very happy with that (she's a rich girl with awesome grades). Another, I don't think my mother would be happy with it after she spent all that money on my education at Blair and at Davidson; though I think she'd support me if I told her that's what I wanted (emotionally not financially). Third, I've made this friend here who looks up to me as kind of a mentor now, and I'd hate to think of him following me down that path. (He may not. I don't know how much he is joking when he calls himself my pupil.) Fourth, I've met this girl here I really like. We were semi-together for a brief couple of days, but she's in love with some other guy or sumthin. That guy cheats on her and stuff though, so I don't know. I think she likes me too. I'd still like to stay near her anyway. Fifth and finally, I'm a little afraid that when I look back, I'll regret leaving. I can't imagine feeling that way now, but I'm also young and naive and I can respect that. That's about the most neutral story of my recent life I can give. Does anyone out there have any suggestions or philosophy to help me out? I would appreciate it greatly. Thanks for reading no matter what.

lurkette

I think some counseling might be in order - your school probably has a free counseling service.

It sounds to me like you've allowed yourself to sort of drift along in life and never really thought about what YOU want. Not what your mom wants or what's easiest. You say you really want to go back home and go to a state college and be a teacher. Is it because you really want to do that, because it sounds fulfilling (in which case I say go for it) or because it's an easy alternative to where you are now? There's nothing wrong with state colleges, and there's nothing wrong with being a teacher. It sounds like you should break up with Becca for her own sake if you can't stay faithful to her. You should maybe work on developing some maturity before you jump into another relationship. As for your two friends, you can keep in touch by email or whatever.

The best advice I can give to you is to write down where you want to go with your life - what what do you want to be doing in 5 years? In 10 years? and then work backwards from there to see what you need to do now. If you allow yourself to be led by a future that you've created and that excites you, it's a lot more effective than being led by the whims of the moment.

And go see a counselor.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

Eldaire

Yeah, I think that's a good call on the maturity thing. Also, I thought being a teacher would be very fulfilling for me since I love kids and I would love to work with them all day, but I also think that some of the motivation is from the fact that it is the easy way of life as well. Is that wrong?

lurkette

When you say "the easy way of life" what do you mean, exactly? It might be a good idea to talk to some teachers and find out how easy they find it. Don't forget that in addition to your teacher education program you will still have to pursue a major and do well in it.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

onetime2

The first thing you need to figure out is what YOU want. You talk about your girlfriend's wishes and your mom's wishes and the only wish that you identify for yourself is one that you recognize as being an easier way out of where you are now.

As lurkette pointed out, counseling is an option. They will likely be able to help you sift through what you want versus what is expected of you.

Don't give up on something just because it's difficult. You've obviously got some dedication since you quit sniffing glue and have worked hard at wrestling, try to put some of that dedication into your schoolwork and see what happens. As far as the girlfriend thing goes, if you can't stay faithful, I think that says a lot about whether you're ready for that level of relationship or not. Getting involved with a girl who cheats on her bf with you, almost guarantees that you will be cheated on by her too.

BTW, I live in Hope, NJ right next to Blairstown. Small world.

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

ratbastid

You should check out JaziaDax's journal!

skysooner

This is a tough problem. In some ways, we are alike. Things came to me easily in life. I was never an athlete, so it was all academic. However I could get As with less than half the work that others had to do. It sounds like you are that way with wrestling. It is sometimes easy to mistake the ease with which you do something to thinking you are a slacker (just due to not having to expend a bunch of effort). My job comes to me so easily that I feel like I'm taking my company's money and only expending a little effort (when in fact I'm one of their highest producers). I'm lucky that I like what I do and make a very good living doing it.

First things first though. Never, ever do things for other people in an attempt to please them. You mention your mom and Becca. How can you know what they will think until you talk to them? Even if they are against it, this doesn't mean that you have to do what they think. How do you think this person who looks up to you would think if he knew you weren't doing what made you happy? On the other hand, you sound unsure about teaching. At the very least, you might be in love with the idea rather than the reality. You could easily go observe in a school somewhere or talk to some Education professors at Davidson or another school to determine if it might still interest you.

I would suggest two kinds of counseling. First, you need to talk to an academic counselor about your career path. They sometimes have tests that you can take that will help you to determine what kind of career you might best be suited for. Second, you probably need some relationship counseling to help to determine where this need to please comes from. I had the same thing. In my case, it was due to my mom being an alcoholic, and I found out that my need to please came out of trying to be careful around my mother when she was drunk. I am able to say no now to things which is a big improvement.

I would absolutely not get involved with this girl at Davidson until you have taken care of things with Becca (either break it off or commit). This might not happen until you have a better sense of who you are through counseling or self-reflection. It sounds like she is not really emotionally available anyway, so going out with her would be the easy way out.

rockzilla

Like others have mentioned, you need to figure out what YOU want career-wise. I spent a lot of my early adulthood miserable because I was going to school for a career I had no interest in. It takes a lot guts to defy everyone's (family, school, friends)expectations of you and go after what makes you happy. It's true, if you leave, you may regret it, but there's an equal chance you'll regret staying where you are now.
Think long and hard about what you want to do with your life, don't let anybody else's needs come ahead of your own, who cares if your mom or gf's happy if you're miserable.

Eldaire

On the Becca issue, she knows a little of what I've done and I know she's cheated on me a little too. It's like a mutual understanding that being this far apart for this long is just too hard on us. On the issue of changing my life, it's just seems so impossible to do directly. I mean, I guess I'm scared. I feel like if I just say, "I'm changing," I would be too big of a disappointment, and I don't know if I could handle that. Y'know, I've lived a lot of my life trying to make my mom happy. She had nothing when she started raising me and she worked really hard to give me these opportunities and even if they're not what I want, I have trouble believing that I could just change my way of life. It seems seductively easier to just let myself slide until my life is changed on its own, y'know? I know that's probably the wrong way to go about it...

Cynthetiq

if you aren't happy you will never be able to make anyone else happy...

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Eldaire

Ooh, very deep. Thanks domo.

skysooner

If you let it slide, you will drift into something even less satisfying than if you did it on your own. Sure there are exceptions, but things generally turn out better when you are empowered. That is why I suggested counseling. It is hard to make the transition from your parent's child to your own person and even more so when you are feeling guilt. She ultimately wants what is best for you (even though she might not really know what it is), so if you do something that makes you happy, she will eventually be happy about it. As for Becca, that is fine, but my main point was getting involved with the local girl on a serious basis when you don't know what you really want out of life is probably not a good idea. Date yes, get serious no until you make some decisions.

clavus

Teaching isn't easy, but at least the pay sucks.

Look, no matter what you do, it's going to be hard. Jobs aren't fun. Jobs are work. School is work too. You need to wrap your head around the fact that nothing is ever going to be perfect or easy. Get the best education you can and you will have more opportunities when you are done.

Slack off now, and you have a greater chance of ending up with a job that you really really hate.

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